Re: Gen Ed Electrical ?
A 50 hp merc has a permanant magnets in the flywheel and a stator which make a permanent magnet alternator. Not a field excited alternator like a car has or an I/O boat has. The strength of the magnetic field is fixed. At a given rpm it can only put out a given amount of current. You can't overtax the stator because it just doesn't care what you are running. It is always putting out that amount of current. Any excess current is wasted as heat by the voltage regulator. That's why the regulator has the heat sink and fins on it. It starts putting out its current as soon as the magnet ring is turning any rpm, the current it puts out just goes up with rpm. If this weren't true then none of the non-electric start outboards would run at idle but they do. Actually, the thing that is taxed in this type of system is the regulator when there is high rpm and little load because there is a lot of energy (heat) to get rid of. The regulator is less taxed when there is a lot of load.
On a field excited alternator, like a car has, the regulator adjusts the current going to the field coil which adjusts the strength of the magnetic field. More magnetic field equals more current output. The problem is that as load goes up, the regulator keeps increasing the current going to the field coils and if the load goes high enough you can get to a point where one of 2 things happens. 1. Either the current going to the field coil is too high for its windings to takeand it burns up, or 2. The current generated in the stator is too high for its windings and it burns up. That's how you an burn up this type of alternator..
As far as the OP's question, no you can't hurt anything by running the engine while running the anchor winch.
